Historical Gleanings

Seventh-day Adventist Publishing Association · Battle Creek, Mich. · Mar 4, 1873

Historical Gleanings.

IMAGE WORSHIP.

The rapid development of apostasy in the early ages of the Christian church, is seen in the exceedingly brief space of time it took to establish openly the worship of images. Gibbon, in his “Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire,” Vol. 5, p. 4, says:—

“The use and even the worship of images was firmly established before the end of the sixth century; they were fondly cherished by the warm imagination of the Greeks and Asiatics: the Pantheon and Vatican were adorned with the emblems of a new superstition; but this semblance of idolatry was more coldly entertained by the rude Barbarians, and the Arian clergy of the West.”

This worship of images was one of the elements of that heathenism which the devil was trying to foist into the Christian worship, and justly subjected the Christians to the reproach of idolatry. On page 7, Gibbon again says:—

“The worship of images had stolen into the church by insensible degrees, and each petty step was pleasing to the superstitious mind, as productive of comfort, and innocent of sin. But in the beginning of the eighth century, in the full magnitude of the abuse, the more timorous Greeks were awakened by an apprehension, that, under the mask of Christianity, they had restored the religion of their fathers: they heard with grief and impatience the name of idolaters; the incessant charge of Jews and Mahometans, who derived from the Law and the Koran an immortal hatred to graven images and all relative worship.”

We italicize the words, “The religion of their fathers.” The religion of their fathers was ancient heathenism.

THE ROMAN EMPIRE CONTINUED UNDER THE POPES.

When the seat of empire was removed from Rome to Constantinople, or, as it is expressed in Rev. 13, when the dragon gave to the beast his seat, and great authority, the supremacy of Rome was continued under the new and strange ruler. The historian thus speaks:—

“A distant and dangerous station, amidst the Barbarians of the West, excited the spirit and freedom of the Latin bishops. Their popular election endeared them to the Romans: the public and private indigence was relieved by their ample revenue; and the weakness or neglect of the emperors compelled them to consult, both in peace and war, the temporal safety of the city. In the school of adversity, the priest insensibly imbibed the virtues and ambition of a prince; the same character was assumed, the same policy was adopted, by the Italian, the Greek, or the Syrian, who ascended the chair of St. Peter; and after the loss of her legions and provinces, the genius and fortune of the popes again restored the supremacy of Rome.”—Id. p. 14.

BY REASON OF TRANSGRESSION.

In Dan. 8:12, we read, “And an host was given him against the daily sacrifice by reason of transgression, and it cast down the truth to the ground and it practiced, and prospered.” By the daily is meant paganism; and this language applies to the Roman Empire at the time when there was to be a transition in the religion of the empire from paganism, the daily, to the papacy, called in verse 13 the transgression of desolation. How was a host given to the papacy against paganism? Answer. As the Barbarians swarmed down upon the provinces of the Roman Empire, they fell a prey to the workings and machinations of the papacy. They nominally embraced such Christianity as Rome then had to offer, as something better than their native paganism. Thus, while they gained temporal dominion over Rome, Rome gained spiritual dominion over them. This fact is stated in the following words of Gibbon:—

“Fraud is the resource of weakness and cunning; and the strong, though ignorant, Barbarian was often entangled in the net of sacerdotal policy. The Vatican and Lateran were an arsenal and manufactory, which, according to the occasion, have produced or concealed a various collection of false or genuine, of corrupt or suspicious, acts, as they tended to promote the interest of the Roman Church.”—Id. p. 33.

The popes were then weak to stand against the Barbarians by force of arms, but they were cunning, and had recourse to fraud; and by means of this transgression, by specious acts of presumption, and forged titles of authority, these Barbarians were brought to acknowledge the pope as their spiritual ruler and head. It was by such accessions to the papal power, accomplished by such means, that the old form of paganism was finally rooted out, as the religion of the empire.

ESCAPING OUT OF HIS HAND.

In a prophecy respecting the king of the north, Turkey, in Dan. 11:41, we read: “He shall enter also into the glorious holy land, and many countries shall be overthrown; but these shall escape out of his hand, even Edom and Moab and the chief of the children of Ammon.” Gibbon, speaking of the perpetual independence of the Arabs, bears the following testimony, which corroborates this prediction:—

“The body of the nation has escaped the yoke of the most powerful monarchies: the arms of Sesostris and Cyrus, of Pompey and Trajan, could never achieve the conquest of Arabia; the present sovereign of the Turks may exercise a shadow of jurisdiction, but his pride is reduced to solicit the friendship of a people, whom it is dangerous to provoke, and fruitless to attack.

“Their domestic feuds are suspended on the approach of a common enemy: and in their last hostilities against the Turks, the caravan of Mecca was attacked and pillaged by fourscore thousand of the confederates. When they advance to battle, the hope of victory is in the front; in the rear, the assurance of a retreat. Their horses and camels, who, in eight or ten days, can perform a march of four or five hundred miles, disappear before the conqueror; the secret waters of the desert elude his search; and his victorious troops are consumed with thirst, hunger, and fatigue, in the pursuit of an invisible foe, who scorns his efforts, and safely reposes in the heart of the burning solitude.”—Id. p. 83.

THE ARABIAN VIEW OF THE INTERMEDIATE STATE.

The Arabs believed in the consciousness of the dead, or of departed spirits; but with this superstition they connected the equally plausible one that beasts are also conscious in the spirit world; and when a man died, they left his camel to perish on his grave, that his spirit might not be obliged to go afoot, but have a spiritual beast to transport him around in the spirit world. Were they good spiritualists? or good orthodox? which? At any rate, we have concerning them this testimony:—

“The reign of the heavenly orbs could not be extended beyond the visible sphere; and some metaphysical powers were necessary to sustain the transmigration of souls and the resurrection of bodies: a camel was left to perish on the grave, that he might serve his master in another life; and the invocation of departed spirits implies that they were still endowed with consciousness and power.”—Id. p. 92.